[Barneymac]

Hi all,

Apologies in advance if this is covered somewhere else. I had a search but couldn't find anything like it. I have been having a lumpy cold idle problem recently so I started looking into it. Initially looked at VANOS solenoids, cleaned them up and checked they were working and re-fitted, improved things but still not right. Had a problem with the VANOS system operating when oil dropped to 25% above min line, multiple fault codes and really rough running. Topped it up and all good again. After topping it up I was messing about in the engine bay while it was idling cold, took the oil cap off and multiple faults appeared (generally misfires). Not sure if that indicates anything but am wondering about low oil pressure. However, couldn't ignore the possibility of an injector fault so I pulled all my spark plugs and all dry, however, general condition of them was not good. Have ordered a new set but wanted to get a view on these and if they should look like this at all. Anyone have any thoughts?

[Phil325i]

Those plugs look well past their best. The gap looks excessive. Don't know how many miles they've been in your engine, but NGK Techincal recommend changing every 20K. I'd say a new set is called for...

P.S. you can send your old plugs to NGK UK and they will do a techincal report on their condition f.o.c.